DNS Records

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

All,
I currently have my own domain and am using Proton mail as my mail provider 
using this domain. As such, my DNS MX records point to their mail servers, as 
well as several TXT records for domain validation (i.e. spf, dmarc, etc). I 
currently have a single page static website for the domain hosted at another 
provider and the DNS A record points to that server (Proton Mail is not a 
hosting provider). However, this server will be decommissioned in a few weeks 
and I would prefer not to have to pay for a separate hosting plan just host a 
simple static web site.

The main purpose of this domain is for email use, but it would be nice to have 
the domain resolve to an actual website, if someone were to go there with a 
browser. Does anyone have any ideas on where I can point my DNS A records to 
for a simple static website, ideally for free? I don't want to poke holes 
through my router and host it at home.

Thanks!
Peter
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Re: Linux Basics

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

Thanks for the tip.
I've also found these two channels very good for learning:

Learn Linux TV (he also has curated playlists on specific topics):
https://www.youtube.com/@LearnLinuxTV/videos

The Urban Penguin (he also has several very good Pluralsight courses)
https://www.youtube.com/c/theurbanpenguin/videos

Peter



On 11/29/2023 5:57 PM, Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss wrote:

Hey I am trying to determine what I do not know about Linux (Ubuntu).

I watched each of these videos by Networkchuck.  He covers a lot and if there 
is anyone wanting to build more Linux muscle, then I would recommend this 
series.  I found a few things that I did not know or that I might need to know 
more about.  He does not cover logs nor does he cover Linux networking.

All in all I think it is a good set of videos for anyone wanting to level up 
that may be, like me, self taught, that may have some missing skills.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIhvC56v63IJIujb5cyE13oLuyORZpdkL

Keith
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Re: Windoze licenses, "Bring us your Poor" edition

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

Just to chime in here as a long time Windows user (SQL Server DBA), you technically don't even need a key to run Windows. I run several Windows 
VMs in "unactivated" mode and have never run into any issues (I don't really like "wasting" keys on VMs). Granted that 
there a few restrictions, such as being unable to change desktop wallpaper, customize taskbar, etc. Generally, "look and feel" 
features. But, you will get all the security updates and retain full functionality of the O/S and it won't "expire". Note that this 
applies to Windows desktop, Windows Server will "expire" after about four months after which you must reinstall the O/S (total BS 
since SQL Server Developer edition is free & never expires, but the license is for dev purposes only not production use). I have bought 
keys from Kinguin.net over the years, but haven't done so it a while. They are legit keys, but technically they are OEM keys. A bit of a 
"grey" area, but use you're own judgement.

Hope this helps,
Peter


On 6/16/2023 7:31 AM, Anthony Radzykewycz via PLUG-discuss wrote:

I’m curious to know if the keys bought off this site would match any keys found 
in places like this:
https://gist.github.com/jhermsmeier/5959110. Also, what would be the liability 
if you paid for the license and that key was pirated like this?
To be clear, I agree with the advocation of getting these keys as inexpensively 
as possible. Just thought I’d throw this out there and maybe you could do a 
quick compare just in case.

On Fri, Jun 16, 2023 at 7:24 AM Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss 
 wrote:

Thanks for sharing this Michael!!  If I can get a legit copy of Win10
and Win11 for cheep I will eventually install on a VM.


On 2023-06-16 04:21, Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss wrote:
>> Are the installation discs sufficient to install Win10 on a no-OS
> computer (or a Linux computer with some extra space on the root
> drive)?
>
> Yep, you install the iso from microsoft.com  [1] so 
it's legit, vm or
> hardware, give it a key during/after install, and off to the races.
>
> -mb
>
> On Thu, Jun 15, 2023 at 11:15 PM Steve Litt via PLUG-discuss
>  wrote:
>
>> Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss said on Thu, 15 Jun 2023 18:22:08
>> -0700
>>
>>> So interestingly enough, if/when I need windoze, I often buy from a
>>> place like THIS, as a method of getting Windoze officially
>> licensed,
>>> flat cheap.
>>>
> 

>>> It updates itself, never had a problem, and simply just works.
>>
>> Are these legitimate licenses, or Far-East knockoffs?
>>
>> Are the installation discs sufficient to install Win10 on a no-OS
>> computer (or a Linux computer with some extra space on the root
>> drive)?
>>
>> Can you install these as Qemu guests on my Linux computer?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> SteveT
>>
>> Steve Litt
>> Autumn 2022 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
>> http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/thrive.htm
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>
>
> Links:
> --
> [1] http://microsoft.com
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To Firewall or Not To Firewall

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

Hi All,

I am finally making the full transition from Windows to Linux. I have currently replaced my Windows laptops with Linux. So far, all my applications and dev tools work great; I am able to do everything on Linux that I am able to on Windows. I have to go on a trip next week and will be bringing my laptops along. When traveling I generally avoid connecting to unknown networks (i.e. hotels, coffee shops, etc), however there are times when I must. When running Windows I always run a firewall (Windows Firewall + Defender). But I've been reading mixed results on whether I should run a firewall on Linux. Half the articles say it's not needed and the other half say I should. I understand that the kernel has no open ports by default. I did verify this by connecting my laptop (via Wifi) to my mobile phone hotspot so that it was not behind any router or firewall. I went to Steve Gibson's Shield's Up site and without the running the Linux firewall, Shield's up showed all ports in 
"stealth" mode.


This laptop isn't running any server-type software requiring open ports. It is 
used for browsing, email and VPN connections to my work environments. Oh, and 
most importantly, Steam games. :)
This is a Dell Latitude running Kubuntu 22.04.

So, I'm asking the PLUG brain-trust, do I need to run a firewall on Linux when 
connecting to public networks (such as a hotel WiFi)?

Any thoughts are appreciated.
Peter
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Re: Linux and Intel RST

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

All,
Thanks for the replies so far. I have to agree with Keith here. I've been 
around in tech since the Apple II+ days (before IBM PC) and have been dismayed 
at the needless complexity of many systems, especially on the database side of 
things. Not that I can complain too loudly, I made very good money in the later 
years being hired on to improve DB efficiency, which almost always was simply 
uncomplicating things. @mb - I appreciate your answer and will look into the 
technologies you mentioned. But, I was hoping to have something as simple as 
what Intel RST does it on the Windows side. Literally, a set it and forget it 
proposition. It just works. And I've had several drive failures over the years 
and the recovery was painless and lossless.

So, I'll keep looking...

Peter


On 2/7/2023 6:16 PM, Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss wrote:

Around 1984 or so there was a poster in the Army National Guard building in Tucson that 
read something like "Keep It Simple Stupid" and went on to say everything 
should be at an 8th grade level.

I was first introduced to Linux in 1998... I took my first programming course 
in 1983 at the UofA. I was already out of high school for 8 years.

I've seen a lot of stuff.  I've watched things become increasingly Complicated. 
 I've mentioned this before. Most will shine me on.

I'm currently a PHP developer.  Over the years I have had my hands in a lot of 
related technologies.

What you describe Michael Butash sounds very complicated. Most things today 
seem to be.

Don't get me wrong, I think some advancements are good such as Proxmox which I 
use.

How do we uncomplicated all of this stuff.

-Keith



On 2023-02-07 16:21, Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss wrote:

That sounds like what they call "fakeraid" using  the rst controller,
really there is no need to anymore.  For probably 15 years now i've
used two disks in a linux mdraid volume for boot/rest in raid 1 for
redundancy, usually a crypt volume with luks atop the rest physical
volume, and lvm atop that, with ext4/xfs atop that.  Still do this
with nvme disks just fine for a few generations of boxes.

I did setup my old desktop as a proxmox box with zfs doing my raid1
recently booting entirely off that (super dope, +++ for that), ymmv
per distribution, but that's an option as well for handling all the
software raid function as well.  Ubuntu server with the deb installer
always handled setting up raid/crypt/lvm/fs just fine, haven't in a
while personally, but probably still does adequately.  I diy normally
with Arch, but it's what drives this laptop I'm typing on currently
with a pair of 980pro nvme samsungs doing above.

-mb

On Tue, Feb 7, 2023 at 4:04 PM AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss
 wrote:


Hi All,

Ok, I'm finally very close to being able to go to a full Linux
environment and leave the Microsoft ecosystem. I'm semi-retired and
still do some Microsoft Data Platform work (which was my career). I
recently got a Dell Latitude and put Kubtunu 22.04 on it and managed
to get all my applications, dev tools (many MS tools too!), and
hardware working. I've been down this road before in years past and
Linux on the desktop was always a "no-go" for me. So, I was
*astonished* how easy it was to install Kubuntu and everything just
worked. That's how it must feel to be a Mac person! :)

However, one of the hurdles with the Dell was that, by default, Dell
configures the BIOS such that the boot drive (NVME in this case) is
set to be in RAID mode instead of AHCI mode, even though there is
only one drive in the system. This caused Ubuntu to simply not boot.
After doing some research I came to find the Ubuntu doesn't support
Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST), which RAID requires. It was a
simple fix to reconfigure the BIOS into AHCI mode, since I was going
to wipe the Windows partition anyway.

But, my main production dev box is Win 10 and I have two NVME drives
in a RAID 0 (mirror) configuration (using hardware RAID in the
BIOS). If I want to install Ubuntu I need to be able to implement
this same level of RAID. If Ubuntu doesn't support the Intel RST
hardware, how can I install Ubuntu and have a RAID 0 arrangement?
I'm not looking for a particular answer to the problem just some
suggestions on what to research. LVM? ZFS? Software RAID?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Peter

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Linux and Intel RST

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

Hi All,

Ok, I'm finally very close to being able to go to a full Linux environment and leave the 
Microsoft ecosystem. I'm semi-retired and still do some Microsoft Data Platform work 
(which was my career). I recently got a Dell Latitude and put Kubtunu 22.04 on it and 
managed to get all my applications, dev tools (many MS tools too!), and hardware working. 
I've been down this road before in years past and Linux on the desktop was always a 
"no-go" for me. So, I was *astonished* how easy it was to install Kubuntu and 
everything just worked. That's how it must feel to be a Mac person! :)

However, one of the hurdles with the Dell was that, by default, Dell configures 
the BIOS such that the boot drive (NVME in this case) is set to be in RAID mode 
instead of AHCI mode, even though there is only one drive in the system. This 
caused Ubuntu to simply not boot. After doing some research I came to find the 
Ubuntu doesn't support Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST), which RAID 
requires. It was a simple fix to reconfigure the BIOS into AHCI mode, since I 
was going to wipe the Windows partition anyway.

But, my main production dev box is Win 10 and I have two NVME drives in a RAID 
0 (mirror) configuration (using hardware RAID in the BIOS). If I want to 
install Ubuntu I need to be able to implement this same level of RAID. If 
Ubuntu doesn't support the Intel RST hardware, how can I install Ubuntu and 
have a RAID 0 arrangement? I'm not looking for a particular answer to the 
problem just some suggestions on what to research. LVM? ZFS? Software RAID?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Peter






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Re: Anyone use Google Fi ??

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

My Family and I have been using Fi for several years. It's reliable, quite 
reasonably priced and when I have had issues the customer service is very 
helpful (and polite).
I especially like that any unused data at the end of the money is rebated to 
you ($10/Gb/Mo)
I should note that we have always used either Pixel phones or those phones sold 
directly via Fi. I have no experience with bringing your own device to Fi.

Peter


On 11/17/2022 11:59 AM, joe--- via PLUG-discuss wrote:

Does anyone here use Google Fi ??

How good or how bad is it?

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Raspberry Pi DHCP & Pihole

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

All,
I ran into an interesting bug that I thought I'd share here. I set up one of my 
Raspberry Pi computers as a Pi-hole and also configured it to act as my DHCP 
server.
After the Pi was acting as a my DHCP router I noticed hundreds of log entries 
in the pihole.log file.
The Pi was being flooded with these kind of requests:

10:17:10 dnsmasq-dhcp[20546]: DHCPINFORM(eth0) 192.168.1.41 dc:a6:32:65:89:d9
10:17:10 dnsmasq-dhcp[20546]: DHCPACK(eth0) 192.168.1.41 dc:a6:32:65:89:d9 
desertpi

Literally dozens of entries per second. As it turns out, I set my other two PIs 
to static IP addresses using the GUI interface, which put this into dhcpcd.conf 
file:
    interface eth0
    inform 192.168.1.41
    static routers=192.168.1.1
    static domain_name_servers=192.168.1.1

When I changed it to this there were no more log entries as listed above (i.e. 
changed 'inform' to 'static')
    interface eth0
    static ip_address=192.168.1.41/24
    static routers=192.168.1.1
    static domain_name_servers=192.168.1.1

As it turns out there is a bug in dhcp that causes INFORM messages to flood the 
router. Since my Netgear router acted as the dhcp server previously, I never 
saw these entries (the netgear log must not display them). But, I had always 
wondered why my PI's network LED was always blinking so much

I could only find two article discussing this:
https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/116121/huge-syslog-filled-with-dhcpcd-lines
https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=265516

My take away: Don't use the GUI to configure things. :)

Hope this helps someone...
Thanks,
Peter





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Re: GNOME or KDE?

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

All,

I have been using Ubuntu as one of my desktops for a while, but have always 
been irritated by how difficult it is to do customize things.
I was thinking of trying KDE, but do I have to re-install a new Kubuntu O/S to 
have KDE or is there a way to install the KDE desktop on my Ubuntu 20.04 
(Gnome) desktop?

Thanks
Peter


On 3/22/2022 3:44 PM, Matt Graham via PLUG-discuss wrote:

On 2022-03-22 15:23, Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss wrote:

In the past there has been some discussion about which is better
GNOME or KDE?  I like Mint and I see it offers MATE (a fork of GNOME
2) or Cinnamon (a fork of GNOME 3).
Does it matter?


KDE is very, very customizable.  GNOME 3 is ... not.  There has been a 
remarkable amount of continuity in how KDE's applications have behaved (and 
looked, if you want) since KDE 2.  And no, not every application starts with a 
K these days.  Default file manager is dolphin not konqueror, default image 
viewer is gwenview not kview, default screenshot taker is spectacle not 
kscreenshot. So I prefer KDE but EPID and YMMV.

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Re: I am signing up for an online, in person, training course.....

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

I use OBS (https://obsproject.com/) for the very use case you need. It works 
best on a 2 monitor set up where I put the webinar on one screen and set OBS to 
record that screen. But there are many other ways to use OBS.

Peter





On 2/18/2022 11:35 AM, Michael via PLUG-discuss wrote:

what do I use to record the session that will also record his and my audio?

--
:-)~MIKE~(-:

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Re: Raspberry pi stop disk spin down

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

Hi,
I have had the same problem with USB connected drives on my Pis, but I needed 
the reverse. Namely, I wanted them to spin down after some time. The bottom 
line is that since the hard drive is connected via USB, the USB hardware itself 
may prevent the drive from spinning down (or always shut it down). But, I've 
had some success using the smartmon tools package to control how/when a given 
hard drive will spin down. The package is called smartmon tools, but the 
command itself is smartctl. A few examples:
sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda            - display all info about drive
    sudo smartctl -g all /dev/sda        - get all non-SMART settings (i.e. 
Advanced Power Mgmt setting)
    sudo smartctl --set=apm,127            - set Advanced Power Mgmt
    sudo smartctl --set=standby,241        - set standby timer to 30min (not 
sure if this superseded by apm setting)

A low value means aggressive power management and a high value means better 
performance. Possible settings range from values 1 through 127 (which permit 
spin-down), and values 128 through 254 (which do not permit spin-down). The 
highest degree of power management is attained with a setting of 1, and the 
highest I/O performance with a setting of 254. A value of 255  disables 
Advanced Power Management altogether on the drive (not all drives support 
disabling it, but most do).

You'll have to dig into the man pages and play around with the various APM 
settings to see if you can get things to work as you like.

If all else fails you could just set up a cron job which runs a script every 
minute that simply touches a file on the drive (i.e. touch 
/some_folder/some_dummy_file.txt), which should prevent it from spinning down.

Hope this helps.
Peter



On 11/27/2021 9:00 PM, Jim via PLUG-discuss wrote:

I have a hard drive attached via a USB adapter to my raspberry pi. The problem 
is that the disk always shuts down after a few minutes of inactivity.  When I 
want to access something on the disk or write to it, I have to wait for it to 
spin up.  How would I go about setting it so it doesn't spin down?  I tried to 
look online and found sdparm mentioned, but found nothing I could understand. 
Please help. Thanks
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Re: System Monitoring

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

Thanks to everyone that replied.
Haven't decided which way to go yet, but thanks for all the good info!
Just to clarify a bit, I'm not putting the Pis under any kind of heavy load. They will be 
running in environmentally "unfriendly" areas (garage, patio, etc), so I want 
to ensure that they are not overheating, especially in summer (I already have them in 
custom cooled cases).

thanks!
Peter


On 10/30/2021 6:18 PM, Matt Graham via PLUG-discuss wrote:

On 2021-10-29 17:57, AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss wrote:

3 Raspberry Pis, 1 Ubuntu, 1 Linux Mint, and am looking for a way that I
can monitor them remotely.


You probably don't need to do this unless they're under much heavier load than 
is usual for home machines.


a unified dashboard that would list for each server:
CPU utilization history, Drive space consumed, Temperature monitoring
(CPU, chip set, & hard drive temps), Fan speed monitoring, Some kind
of alerting mechanism when a given threshold is passed



I've looked into Webmin, Glances, Nagios, Collectd & Cockpit. Mostly
these seemed to be geared more toward remote admin. But the monitoring
that was available didn't seem to include the temperature info or the
idea of one unified dashboard.


When I was doing this (a long time ago), it was not possible without 2 separate 
programs.  We used Ganglia to keep records of CPU load, disk space, free RAM, 
number of database connections (if the machine was a MySQL server), and other 
stats.  Ganglia's default configuration had a web page that showed various 
statistics for all the machines that are set up and running the client Ganglia 
service.

Ganglia does not notify people about things though.  To send mail to people or put a notice on a web page that said, 
"WARNING: machine foo-1234 has more than 200 active database connections", we used Nagios. The Nagios server 
can monitor any parameter that is measurable from the Nagios clients, because Nagios monitors are (were?) Perl scripts 
that run on the clients.  Perl can easily parse the output from `sensors` or `df` or `free` and return "OK", 
"Warning", or "Error" as you wish.

There used to be a rather useful firefox extension called nagios-checker that 
would poll a Nagios web page and display useful information in firefox's status 
bar.  However, they have improved firefox so much that the extension no longer 
works.

If installing and configuring this stuff sounds like too much work for a tiny 
number of machines that are probably not under very heavy load, you're right.  
It might be a useful learning experience, but its *practical* value is probably 
not very high.



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System Monitoring

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

Hi All,

I have a growing network of Linux servers in my home network (3 Raspberry Pis, 
1 Ubuntu, 1 Linux Mint) and am looking for a way that I can monitor them 
remotely.
Specifically, I'm looking to have a unified dashboard that would list for each 
server:

 * CPU utilization history
 * Drive space consumed
 * Temperature monitoring (CPU, chip set, & hard drive temps)
 * Fan speed monitoring
 * Some kind of alerting mechanism when a given threshold is passed (i.e. email 
sent).

These are the most important items, anything else would be a "nice to have".
I've looked into Webmin, Glances, Nagios, Collectd & Cockpit. Mostly these 
seemed to be geared more toward remote admin. But the monitoring that was available 
didn't seem to include the temperature info or the idea of one unified dashboard.  
I would rather not have to go to a separate admin site for each server to check on 
it's status.

Does anyone have any recommendations for such software, keeping things as 
simple as possible (i.e. Nagios seemed waaayyy to complicated, being an 
enterprise tool).

Thanks,
Peter


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Re: OT: How launch Linux (WSL) in Win10 ?

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

As mentioned by another reply, WSL2 is best to use. Note that you have to have 
Windows 10 ver. 2004 for a WSL2 installation.
Here are a couple links I found helpful. Microsoft's documentation is very good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fntjriRe48
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about

I also read along the way that if you are using another Hypervisor (such as Virtualbox) 
on the same machine that there may be some "hiccups". WSL uses Windows built-in 
Virtual Machine architecture since WSL is essentially a VM running a Linux distro (and 
you can run multiple distros under WSL, such as Suse, Ubuntu, Redhat, etc).

Hope this helps.
Peter


On 6/25/2021 1:12 PM, Stephen Partington via PLUG-discuss wrote:

It has received some solid work, and is well documented, let me know if you 
need a hand in geting it running.

On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 9:53 PM Victor Odhner via PLUG-discuss 
mailto:plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org>> 
wrote:

Thanks. My more recent attempts seemed to be leaning towards WSL 2, though the 
other looked like a much simpler approach.  I hope I don’t have a dozen copies of 
"Ubuntu 20.04 LTS” cluttering together …
__

On 20210624, at 21:19, Aaron Jones via PLUG-discuss mailto:plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org>> wrote:


https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10#install-windows-terminal-optional
 


Don’t use wsl 1 but use 2 if you can help it.


On Jun 24, 2021, at 8:40 PM, Victor Odhner via PLUG-discuss 
mailto:plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org>> 
wrote:

I got a Windows 10 laptop to mesh with some (ech!) Microsoft in a project.

I’m learning very slowly, since (a) I retired from software in 2013 and (b) 
have been in recovery since then and (c) I really never stepped outside Linux 
except for company email.

So of course I’ll make Linux available on that computer if I can.
But I’m stuck.

*Anyone know the steps?*
*  I selected Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, and selected WSL 1.*
*  I got a message saying it was installed, but I can’t find a way to start 
it up.*
*  I can’t find any control panel for it.*

Any idea how to do this?
:)

Thanks,
Victor Odhner
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--
A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling 
over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

Stephen


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Re: Wifi Adapter Not Recognized

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

I tried "modprobe rt2800pci" and no errors were returned, but still nothing 
working. I always install selecting to include non-free software. I saw no packages available 
with *ralink* in the name and all packages with *firmware* in the name didn't seem 
applicable. I did some reading and found several recommendations for Wifi adapters (PCIe 
& USB) that work very well with Linux and are quite inexpensive. I'm going to get one and 
see how things go from there.

Thanks for you're help Matt. Very much appreciated!

Peter


On 4/22/2021 1:47 PM, Matt Graham via PLUG-discuss wrote:

On 2021-04-22 12:44, AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss wrote:

On 4/21/2021 5:37 PM, Matt Graham via PLUG-discuss wrote:

On 2021-04-21 16:44, AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss wrote:

I'm having a bear of a time getting my wireless card to work in a
Linux Mint 20.1 machine.

(lshw output snipped)

   *-network UNCLAIMED
    description: Network controller
    product: RT5592 PCIe Wireless Network Adapter

When I do a "ifconfig -a" only etho and lo are displayed.


That's really odd, you should see eth0 if it's still on the old device names.  
And I thought everything had switched to the new device names, so it should be 
enp4s0 or something like that.


 "lsmod | grep rt2800" returns nothing.

thing should be supported by the rt2800pci module.  When you do
"lsmod | grep rt2800", do you see that?  If it's not there,
then modprobe it.


You didn't do "modprobe rt2800pci"?  I know people are in a big hurry and don't 
read carefully, but that should've been the first thing you tried.  Mint should be good 
about finding hardware, but sometimes things screw up.  If the modprobe worked, 
immediately after running the modprobe, you should see something like:

[34.5678] rt2800pci :02:01.0: enabling device
[34.5678] rt2800pci :02:01.0 wlp2s1 : renamed from wlan0

...in the output from dmesg.

Also, many wireless cards these days require firmware.[0]  Did you install that?  That 
should've been done as part of the initial install, but maybe it wasn't done for whatever 
reason.  No idea what Mint does, but the package should have "firmware" in its 
name.  The Debian package is called firmware-ralink so Mint's package will probably be 
named something similar.  You will have to tell Mint to allow non-Free software to 
install that.


Any recommendations on which PCie-based wifi cards work well with
Linux - that is "plug and chug" without having to jump through all
these hoops.


The only thing you should have to do to get almost any wireless card working 
these days is install the firmware files and load the right module.  And then 
set it up with ESSID and password.

[0] Firmware these days is not GPL, so if you did something like "only install GPL, 
Apache, MIT, etc licensed stuff" then you won't have the firmware you need.



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Re: Wifi Adapter Not Recognized

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

Hello,
Thanks for the reply. When I do a "ifconfig -a" only etho and lo are displayed.
"lsmod | grep rt2800" returns nothing.
It seems that Linux isn't finding the driver for this card.
At this point, I've spent way too much time trying to get this card running when it 
should be a "no-brainer". I'd rather just spend a few dollars on another card 
and be done with it.
Any recommendations on which PCie-based wifi cards work well with Linux - that is 
"plug and chug" without having to jump through all these hoops.

Thanks!
Peter


On 4/21/2021 5:37 PM, Matt Graham via PLUG-discuss wrote:

On 2021-04-21 16:44, AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss wrote:

I'm having a bear of a time getting my wireless card to work in a
Linux Mint 20.1 machine. [...] all hardware works fine in Windows.
When I boot Linux it looks to me like it's not able to find the
card. This card is a few years old

What does "network UNCLAIMED" mean?

(lshw output snipped)

   *-network UNCLAIMED
    description: Network controller
    product: RT5592 PCIe Wireless Network Adapter


You should see 2 network devices with "ifconfig -a", do you? grepping through the kernel sources for RT5592 
says that this thing should be supported by the rt2800pci module.  When you do "lsmod | grep rt2800", do you 
see that?  If it's not there, then modprobe it.  If it is, how are you managing your nyetwork on this machine?  Lots of 
distros use "Network Manager", which is a giant PITA, but is "friendly", whatever that means.  Go 
into your nyetwork manager and configure it so that it knows what ESSID to connect to and what the password is.  
Alternatively, make sure that you've got wpa_supplicant installed and just add the configuration info to 
wpa_supplicant.conf and restart wpa_supplicant .

Also, UNCLAIMED is not necessarily a bad thing.  If I do lshw here, I see that 
a camera I have plugged in is UNCLAIMED.  This is because it's a PTP digital 
camera, so it is claimed by no kernel module, but it is supported in userspace 
with gtkam/libusb.  Your network card should probably not be like that though.



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Wifi Adapter Not Recognized

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

Hi All,

I'm having a bear of a time getting my wireless card to work in a Linux Mint 
20.1 machine. The machine is my old dev box that I want to re-purpose and 
requires wireless connectivity to my network (it's in an area were hard line 
isn't available). This machine dual boots to Windows 10 and all hardware works 
fine in Windows. The wireless adapter connects to my network quickly and 
without issue. When I boot Linux it looks to me like it's not able to find the 
card. This card is a few years old, so it's not so new that there shouldn't be 
drivers for it in the kernel.

I did connect the computer via Ethernet cable today and did all system updates, 
but still the wifi card doesn't work.
As a side note, I've tried several USB Wifi adapters and none of them work in 
Linux, but all work just fine when I boot Windows.

The hardware is a PCIe wireless adapter ASUS_PCE-N53. Below is the output from lshw -C 
network. What does "network UNCLAIMED" mean?

Any help would be most appreciated.
Thanks
Peter

  *-network
   description: Ethernet interface
   product: 82579V Gigabit Network Connection
   vendor: Intel Corporation
   physical id: 19
   bus info: pci@:00:19.0
   logical name: eno0
   version: 05
   serial: 00:22:4d:6a:26:35
   size: 1Gbit/s
   capacity: 1Gbit/s
   width: 32 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 
10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
   configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=e1000e 
driverversion=3.2.6-k duplex=full firmware=0.11-4 ip=192.168.1.115 latency=0 
link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=1Gbit/s
   resources: irq:39 memory:f350-f351 memory:f3525000-f3525fff 
ioport:3040(size=32)
  *-network UNCLAIMED
   description: Network controller
   product: RT5592 PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
   vendor: Ralink corp.
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@:07:00.0
   version: 00
   width: 32 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
   configuration: latency=0
   resources: memory:f320-f320


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Goodbye Fry's

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

Looks like Fry's Electronics finally bit the dust. :(

https://news.yahoo.com/frys-electronics-closes-nationwide-055027690.html

Peter

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Re: OT: Off topic ... Hi from an old timer ... plus, a Question

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

I would think hard about upgrading to a "faster" plan.
The Wall St. Journal did  a study that basically said you gain no advantage for 
streaming media by upgrading to a faster plan.
The WSJ article is behind a pay wall, but this article summarizes the results.
https://medium.com/gowander/quick-take-wsj-the-truth-about-faster-internet-its-not-worth-it-c73d79a616b9

I've been working from home since last March when Covid started. I have two kids. One is 
in high school who is on Zoom all day for school. The other is streaming 
Pluralsight/Youtube/Coursera all day doing self-learning to become a software dev. I'm a 
DBA and am on all kinds of video calls/meetings throughout the day as well as 
transferring large files to/from my local network. My wife works remotely as well (altho 
not very many video meetings).  In the evening the kids are streaming 
movies/Youtube/video games/Discord/etc. With all this streaming going on I've never 
experienced any noticeable lag/dropouts in streaming or video conference calls. However, 
we consistently *almost* reach our 1.25TB cap each month. I have the Cox "Internet 
Preferred" plan (100Mb down/10 up). Since we are using a lot more data I'm 
considering upgrading our data cap (but not the speed).

As far as the redundant ISP idea, I too worry about this. But my plan in the 
event of an ISP outage is to use my mobile phone as a hot spot. It'll work in a 
pinch to get me by until the outage is resolved. I've only ever experienced 
short outages with Cox, so having a backup ISP seems like a lot of wasted money 
in my opinion. But, you have to assess you're own situation and make the 
decisions that work for you.

Something to consider
Peter



On 1/26/2021 3:49 PM, der.hans via PLUG-discuss wrote:

Am 26. Jan, 2021 schwätzte Mike Schwartz so:

moin moin Mike,


OT: Off topic ... Hi from an old timer ... plus, a Question

Please forgive me if I have been "out of radio contact" for too long.


Yeah, it's been a while :).

I believe both CenturyLink and Cox are offering Gigabit if you're in the
right part of town. At least Cox puts a data maximum on it. I believe
someone pointed out that a true gigabit connection can hit the monthly
maximum in a few hours.

I was switching ISPs about the time that the pandemic started, so just
kept the old connection. I'm on one connection for dayjob and the family
uses the other.

Since the pandemic has started both ISPs have had multi-hour outages, so
it's been handy to have a spare. Paying for two connections is a lot
cheaper than not getting paid due to overloaded bandwidth :).

ciao,

der.hans


(as in ... the "Wolf Brand chili" slogan)
  (see, e.g.,
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22Wolf+Brand+chili%22+slogan=h_=web
OR ... just click over to the "[[Slogan]]" *section* of the Wikipedia
article about "Wolf Brand chili" ... at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Brand_Chili#Slogan


* * * Question: * * *
We upgraded our ISP service (at home) when my wife started working from
home ... around the beginning of the pandemic. It is still "DSL", --
through "CenturyLink" -- but supposedly it is now FOUR times faster than it
used to be, (it "had been" ... for * * * *years. ** * *)

I think we need something faster now. (We have 3 adults ... and make use of
[either Zoom or "Google Meet" or something similar] a lot lately.

Any advice?
(including, whether or not we should have more than one ISP, just to be on
the safe side?)

Thanks in advance, ...

Mike Schwartz
   [elderly] timer
   I may be in the Plug-Discuss archives ... if they [still] go "WABAC"
...
Glendale  AZ
schwa...@acm.org




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Re: PLUG Virtual Meeting on Oct 8th

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

Hans,

Will this presentation be recorded? I'm very interested in learning how to set 
up ssh, but may not be able to make the time slot.

Thanks,
Peter


On 10/7/2020 1:28 PM, PLUG Announcements via PLUG-discuss wrote:



  PLUG Meeting for Oct 8^th

*Attend by going to: https://lufthans.bigbluemeeting.com/b/plu-yuk-7xx*

--


This month:
We've got a couple of presentations for you to enjoy from the comfort of 
your own home.*
*

** ***
--
der.hans: SSH Tunnels and More

Description:
*Abstract: SSH is the go to tool for sysadmins and developers for interactive 
connections to remote machines. It creates secure, encrypted connections 
between computers, even across hostile networks. Secure unless you accept keys 
without verification (DON'T DO THAT!!!).

SSH can also create tunnels for encapsulating other connections, including 
other protocols and data. Sysadmins can bridge protocols across networks for 
ease of access such as a one-off data sync. Devs can present the dev database 
on their desktop to ease use of graphical development tools.

After attending this session, audience members will be able to create a local 
tunnel from client to server, a remote tunnel from server to client, and do 
simple analysis of local vs remote evaluation of a command. Attendees will be 
able to use tunnels for SSH or sample other protocols (MySQL and HTTP), and 
tunneling via a third party system. They will also be familiar with dynamic 
SOCKS proxies and using SSH to tunnel graphical applications. Finally, 
attendees will also learn SSH configuration and command line tips for 
convenience of use, including using forced command to restrict an SSH key to 
one purpose.

*About der.hans:*
der.hans is a technology and entrepreneurial veteran.

He is chairman of the Phoenix Linux User Group (PLUG), Promotions and Outreach 
chair for SeaGL, BoF organizer for the Southern California Linux Expo (SCaLE) 
and founder of the Free Software Stammtisch. He presents regularly at large 
community-led conferences (SCaLE, SeaGL, LFNW, Tübix, OLF, TXLF) and many local 
groups.

Currently a Customer Data Engineer at Object Rocket. Public statements are not 
representative of $dayjob.

Mastodon - https://floss.social/@FLOX_advocate

Plume - https://fediverse.blog/~/LuftHans

*Sri- Circular Datacenter - Natural partners for FLOSS and Open Hardware*

The Circular Datacenter is the idea that we can reuse datacenter
components and recertify them to new markets. This talk describes the
supply chain that the circular datacenter creates, and how we can leverage
that to build sustainable computational power that naturally allies itself
to free and open source software and open hardware.

*Attend the meeting by visiting 
https://lufthans.bigbluemeeting.com/b/plu-yuk-7xx at 7pm MST*

*Meeting Location is Virtual*:
*https://lufthans.bigbluemeeting.com/b/plu-yuk-7xx*

For more information see the meeting information on our web site 

Re: Raspberry Pi uses on a home network

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

I'm also in the process of setting up a PiHole server. In the reading I've done 
so far (and as I understand things), the Pihole server would block any DNS 
requests to the ad server itself. So, the ad would never be retrieved onto your 
network in the first place. Websites can detect if you have an ad-blocker 
extension in your browser and then present a page indicating such. Since you no 
longer need said browser extension there isn't a way that a given website could 
detect that you've blocked an ad.

At least that's my understanding. I'll let the web developers on the list chime 
in. :)

Peter


On 9/11/2020 9:40 AM, Jim via PLUG-discuss wrote:


I have a question about these websites that block browsers with an ad blocker.  
How do they react if the computer I'm using uses Pi hole?

On 9/10/20 3:57 PM, Steve B via PLUG-discuss wrote:

I decided to go with Pi-hole as I believe I can get the most benefit from that 
for my needs.

On Wed, Sep 9, 2020, 8:02 PM polt via PLUG-discuss mailto:plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org>> wrote:

use it to control your 3D printer, if you don't have a 3D printer you 
should get one so you can control it.

Jason


On 9/9/2020 3:22 PM, Steve B via PLUG-discuss wrote:

I've been offered a Raspberry P 3B+ with a POE hat, but am having 
difficulty deciding if I really need it. Currently the uses I can see for it 
within my home network are:

1. Ubiquiti controller (replacing a cloud controller);
2. Pi hole;
3. Tor relay node;
4. Asterisk server.

Would appreciate some ideas for other possible uses.

Steve



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Re: Raspberry Pi uses on a home network

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

Some interesting projects here:
https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-index/
https://raspberrytips.com/raspberry-pi-projects-for-home/

OTOH, if you don't want your 3B+ I'll take it! :)

Peter

On 9/9/2020 3:22 PM, Steve B via PLUG-discuss wrote:

I've been offered a Raspberry P 3B+ with a POE hat, but am having difficulty 
deciding if I really need it. Currently the uses I can see for it within my 
home network are:

1. Ubiquiti controller (replacing a cloud controller);
2. Pi hole;
3. Tor relay node;
4. Asterisk server.

Would appreciate some ideas for other possible uses.

Steve



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Re: Auto Mounting External USB drives

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

Thanks for the tips.

/"//I thought you had to use NTFS-3g to write to NTFS.  Also, don't these things 
have labels?  It's much more readable and simpler to mount a thing with a label than a 
UUID if you can. //"

/I used the UUID based on a Pluralsight course I watched on Raspberry Pi. I like it 
better than a label, since labels can be easily changed (esp. in Windows) whereas a 
partition UUID would only change if the drive were re-partitioned (highly unlikely). And 
I'm not terribly concerned about "unsightly-ness" in a config file (a simple 
comment will tell me what it is).  I have the ntfs-3g package loaded and the mount -t 
ntfs is actually using ntfs-3g behind the scenes.

/"Backup script should check whether the disks are mounted or not? "/
Any suggestions on how I could check whether a drive is mounted? Some kind of 
combination of lsblk & grep??

Thanks
Peter


On 9/9/2020 3:52 PM, Matt Graham via PLUG-discuss wrote:

AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss wrote:

However, currently I have to manually mount each of the external
drives. This isn't a terribly big issue since the drives are
rotated to offsite storage only once per month. But, if the Pi
gets rebooted, the drives are not being auto-mounted and the
backups will then fail.


Backup script should check whether the disks are mounted or not? But read on.


/etc/fstab to auto-mount them at boot, but if they drives are
not connected at boot time, I've found the the Pi doesn't boot
(it just seems to hang).


If a thing may not be there, it is not recommended to auto-mount it on boot.


mount -t ntfs PARTUUID=c6040663-9321-4d28-91f0-2f3eb35f72b7 /mnt/Ext3TB_Data1/


I thought you had to use NTFS-3g to write to NTFS.  Also, don't these things 
have labels?  It's much more readable and simpler to mount a thing with a label 
than a UUID if you can.


How can I "conditionally" mount an external drive based on if
the drive is currently connected?

On 2020-09-09 14:13, James Mcphee via PLUG-discuss wrote:

autofs or udev rules would be your best bet.


https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Udev#Mounting_drives_in_rules explains how 
to do this sort of thing using udev and systemd (yeck!).  udev is not really 
meant for starting a long-running process, so there is a workaround.



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Auto Mounting External USB drives

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

Hi all,

I was finally able to do away with an aging Windows machine and replace it with 
a Raspberry Pi 4 running Buster.  The only purpose for this server is to backup 
selected folders and files from other servers onto two external USB drives for 
offsite storage. I've automated the backup process using rsync and a cron job. 
All is working well and the backups are happening on schedule.
However, currently I have to manually mount each of the external drives. This 
isn't a terribly big issue since the drives are rotated to offsite storage only 
once per month. But, if the Pi gets rebooted, the drives are not being 
auto-mounted and the backups will then fail. I've tried putting an entry in 
/etc/fstab to auto-mount them at boot, but if they drives are not connected at 
boot time, I've found the the Pi doesn't boot (it just seems to hang).

Here is how I mount the drives.
mount -t ntfs PARTUUID=c6040663-9321-4d28-91f0-2f3eb35f72b7 /mnt/Ext3TB_Data1/
mount -t ntfs PARTUUID=f88c9c86-e44d-4846-9fbe-305074347e97 /mnt/Ext3TB_Video1/

How can I "conditionally" mount an external drive based on if the drive is 
currently connected? I could write a script that checks if the particular partition 
(PARTUUID) is currently connected but not mounted and put this script in the rc.local 
folder to be executed at boot.
Is this the best way? I'm sure that others have encountered this issue and wanted to know 
what the "best practices" are on how to achieve this?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Peter




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Linux Learning Resources

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

Hi All,

After about a 10 year hiatus away from Linux I'm getting back into it for daily 
use. I've been playing around with Ubuntu (and Zorrin). When I was using Linux 
all those years ago it was mainly as command line against a remote server (no 
desktop). But, now I want to learn more about using Linux from a desktop user 
perspective for daily use.  I'm looking for how to do stuff as a Linux user not 
so much administering the machine (although I understand there's some cross 
over).  My main goal is to learn how to do tasks on the Linux desktop that I 
currently do on Windows as a user and a developer (I'm a SQL Server DBA).

Googling for "How to do X in Linux" returns so many hits it's overwhelming (and 
time consuming). So, I thought I'd ask the group to get the good stuff directly. :)

What recommendations can the group provide as far as learning resources? 
Websites, newsletters, blogs, daily usage tips, etc?
Where do you guys go for this type of information?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Peter


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Public DNS Servers

[AZ Pete via PLUG-discuss]

Hi All,

I was curious if anyone has any recommendations for free public DNS servers 
that they've used. I've been using OpenNic for a while, but in the last two 
days I'm experiencing a lot of trouble with domains not resolving. I'm using 
Google's (8.8.8.8) right now and things are much better. But, I thought I'd 
ping the Plug list for other recommendations. Reliability and privacy are the 
priority in that order (with privacy a close second). I don't need all the add 
on features of parental controls, malicious site blocking, etc.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Peter

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